So, I'm on my second fortress. The last one was frustrating and the "fun" wasn't quite fun. I felt like I was waiting forever for the tantrum spiral to end amidst the appearance of multiple goblin forces, troll raiders, and monsters from the caverns below.
So I took my lessons from these boards, that game, and the wiki and started a new one.
For one, I finally have a flux metal! Now I just need to find some ores....
However, a question-
Is there a way, short of building a wall, of completely preventing my dwarves from crossing a particular area? I've built a bridge across a moat, designed to protect my fortress. I want to test it. I do NOT want to fling someone across the map (well, not one of my guys, although maybe that machinist who had just one profession enabled and took such a long break that a guy with no experience with gears and many other jobs finally hooked the thing up....). How can I prevent the dwarfs from constantly streaming across that bridge? (I've tried making it a restricted/high cost traffic area, didn't seem to make a difference).
Also, I've had my first unpleasant interaction with elves. I'd missed the first caravan due to the lack of anything to trade. The second one (elves) showed up and I hauled out my meager supply of cut gems and a cat totem. Set up a trade, and the elves are going to come out 34DB ahead. They refuse. Repeatedly. I keep making the offer because it's a fair deal (well, not really, but for them it's good) and in my last game if I kept offering they would either take it or make a counter offer.
They refused, called my expedition leader besotted, and told him to "think on" the lesson.
He pondered, and seized the goods he wanted.
Should I have bothered to seize ALL the goods? Does the amount I seize in a particular instance affect how quickly they will get annoyed at me?